Sébastien Ogier leads Rally Portugal with Thierry Neuville close behind, as erstwhile leader Adrien Fourmaux dropped down to sixth.
Oliver Solberg led the event overnight after Thursday’s opening leg of three stages, but immediately lost the advantage to Fourmaux on SS4.
While many jostled for position behind him, Fourmaux stretched his lead out to 7.7s by the midday remote service in Arganil, but Ogier – who made some suspension changes in that service – turned up the heat in the afternoon.
Ogier narrowed Fourmaux’s advantage to just four seconds, then moved ahead after SS8 Góis when Fourmaux went off the road and got two punctures.
As a consequence Fourmaux fell to sixth, ending the day 6.2s behind championship leader Elfyn Evans and 34.3s off the lead after driving the final two stages of the day without a spare wheel.
Ogier meanwhile had Neuville’s Hyundai to contend with, but had the Belgian covered. Although gaps remained tight, Ogier won three of the afternoon’s four stages to take a 3.7s lead into Saturday.
But does that count for much with heavy rain expected on Saturday?
“Tomorrow is the start of a new rally,” said Ogier. “At the moment I think we can be happy with what we did this afternoon – the beginning of the rally was a bit more tricky but we can be happy we found better pace.”
A spin at a hairpin and a broken windshield compromised Sami Pajari’s afternoon; the Finn climbing as high as second in the morning after back-to-back stage wins.
But he holds a podium position overnight, 1.1s ahead of Solberg who rued a “silly day” after an error at the same corner as Fourmaux on SS8.
Pajari and Solberg are respectively 15.2s and 16.4s off Ogier’s lead.
Evans had a clean day driving wise but caught a recovery truck on the second pass of Argnail, much to his and co-driver Scott Martin’s dismay. He was later handed a notional time, giving him 4.4s back.
Takamoto Katsuta is a lonely seventh overall, 50.1s off the lead after struggling to find the right feeling throughout the day – posting just two top-five stage times.
“For sure better than the morning but I was really struggling,” said Katsuta. “For tomorrow we know how we can improve so I just try to find the best feeling. The condition will be quite tricky tomorrow but actually that’s what I’m hoping for.”
Dani Sordo survived a lairy landing over a jump to end the day eighth, 33.2s behind Katsuta, with Josh McErlean leading M-Sport’s pride of Pumas despite a 50s penalty for leaving the remote service five minutes late when his car wouldn’t start.
Without that penalty he’d be 7.4s behind Sordo instead of 57.4s.
Mãrtiņš Sesks had been ahead of McErlean, setting a fourth and third fastest time in the afternoon, before he picked up two front punctures on the final stage of the day.
Sesks was passed by McErlean on the stage and he therefore lost over three minutes.
“It was exactly the same place as last year we got the puncture and we changed the tire in exactly the same place,” Sesks rued. “But this time there were two punctures, so I don’t know what I’ve done to this stage.”
Jon Armstrong completed the entire afternoon without power steering, but nipped ahead of Sesks by 18.1s at the end of day due to the Latvian’s stoppage.
